I Am But A Man
by WizardsGirl
Summary: "I am but a man/Mere flesh and bone" - I Am But A Man by Lee Stewart/ Junior Deputy Ryan Pierce has just accidentally set off a Holy War, and only the memory of his Mama's warnings when he was younger saves him from destroying himself and everything around him (to a certain degree of "saves")


**A/N:** Have another FarCry 5 One-Shot because I can.

**I Am But A Man**

_I am but a Man_

_Mere Flesh and Bone_

_I am from the Land_

_From Seeds I was Grown..._

Deputy Ryan Pierce was a Mama's Boy, he knew it and so did anyone who knew _him_. And his Mama was a Good, Kind, God-Fearing Woman who was the most open-minded and nurturing soul he had ever had the blessing of meeting. She hadn't minded that he was hesitant to go to church or declare himself as any kind of worshiper, instead she would just smile and tell him that God Loved him anyways and that he was more than allowed to decide how and who and when he worshiped, as long as he was happy.

She'd raised him, alone and strong and head lifted high, on that little farm in Nebraska until he hit eighteen and decided to go to the Police Academy. She'd taught him how to hunt with a bow, how to skin anything with fur, how to eat everything on his plate whether he liked it or not because wasting food was a petty thing when people starved for a chance to nibble on bread crumbs. She taught him to never raise his hand in anger, but only in defense, and that there are just some lines that you should _never_ cross.

And here, in the backwoods of Montana, in the blood-drenched beginnings of a backwards Holy War he'd accidentally started, he remembered that fact in sudden, painful, clarity.

Siting not even ten feet in front of him, shirtless, barefoot, unarmed and alone, was Joseph Seed, eyes shut behind his yellow glasses and head tilted back to face the sky, kneeling in the clovers with his prayer-beads cradled in his palms, just... Sitting. Probably praying.

And there was Ryan, crossbow in hand, more than able to end this War if he was just willing to cross the line to do it.

_I work the Way_

_The Way is to Work_

_Out in the Day_

_Back in the Dirt_

There are some lines you should never cross, Mama always told him, because once they were crossed, there was no way back. Once crossed, you were no longer a Man but a Monster, a Demon, minion of Lucifer. Those lines weren't drawn in sand but in Blood, and each man and woman bore the weight of those Lines on their very Souls. Some could cross without realizing, a moment of desperation or whimsy or curiosity, forever barring them from returning to the blissful ignorance of Before. Some crossed them grimly, backed into a corner or convinced not doing so would be worse. Some toed that line like a dare, like staining their fingertips with that blood wasn't the same as swimming through it.

And some were able to know where those Lines were, and chose not to cross at all.

Quietly, Ryan slipped his crossbow away, slinging it over his shoulder where it hung, within easy reach, with the dead wolverine he'd killed not even an hour before.

"Hello, Joseph," he greeted quietly, calmly, politely. The preacher's shoulders stiffened, ever-so-slightly, enough to let Ryan know that he hadn't been sensed or heard at all, that, had he wanted to, Joseph Seed could have died here in this empty clearing in the middle of the county, and not a soul but himself would know what had happened.

But Ryan was raised by a Good Woman, and he _would not_ shoot an unarmed man, not in the back or head on, and especially not a Preacher, even if it was a sham of one like Joseph fucking Seed.

"My Child," Joseph murmured in reply, voice neutral, polite and calm and edged with consideration as he turned his head to look at Ryan from the corner of those yellow Ray-Bans, a flash of cornflower blue glinting in the yellow gleam. Ryan bobbed his head, polite as can be, as he walked forward to stand within a few feet of the man. After a quiet moment of contemplation, he unslung both crossbow and catch, laying them neatly on the ground and taking a seat beside the Preacher, a good two feet of space between his knee and the other mans. Tilting his own head back, Ryan stared up at the sky, a clear blue with a smattering of soft, white clouds. The sun was shining, the birds were flying, and, for the first time in what felt like _decades_, the Junior Deputy allowed his shoulders to untense, to relax, and let the Peace of Nature seep into him.

Beside him, Joseph observed him, before slowly, carefully, returning to his Prayers. Ryan stayed there, eventually turning to begin the messy task of skinning and preparing the wolverine for both sale and dinner. They remained there in silence for a few hours, Ryan's radio silenced after the first time it broke the quiet peace.

When they eventually separated, with was with polite acknowledgement and considering gazes, and a few words from Joseph to remind Ryan that he was still welcome in Eden, that it was not too late if he truly wished to repent.

Ryan didn't respond, simply walked back into the forest and disappeared, but that didn't mean the words didn't linger in the back of his mind as he hunted for a place to camp for the night.

_The People, they Look_

_They Gaze and Stare_

_Am I a Book?_

_Why should I care?_

Ryan was no Killer, no Murderer, no weapon. And yet, that was what these people expected (begged, pleaded, _ordered_) him to do, to be. They asked for his help with open, earnest faces, then turned around and told him it wasn't _enough_ just to help, that he had to _kill_ as well. That he had to _kill_ and _reap_ and _destroy_ so that _they_ could just _feel safe again_. But he wasn't a Soldier, wasn't a Weapon, he wasn't Trained for this sort of situation. He was a _Junior Deputy_, not a Hitman. His job was to _protect_ not _destroy_ and every time he refused (Politely, gently, genuinely) to be their rabid dog, people would look at him in despair and fury and disgust and spit _coward_ and _traitor_ in his face, as if he was to blame for all that was wrong with the world.

Some tried to guilt him into doing things, attacking outposts or ambushing caravans. _If you hadn't gone into that Church, __**none**__ of this would be happening! If you just killed that sonofabitch, these people would still be alive! If you just (Killed Them/Burned Them? Destroyed Them) then we'd be safe now!_

But Ryan was not a Weapon, and he was not a Coward, and he wouldn't be swayed.

_They Look, they Judge_

_Maybe by my Cover._

_I hold no Grudge_

_For I am just Another_

"Pick up a gun and kill him yourself, if you want him dead that badly," he told the latest angry civilian, his gray eyes hard and thin lips tight.

"I can't do it!" The man yelped, waving his hands around like the words were a hornet, eyes wide. "I ain't trained for that sorta thing!"

"And neither am I," the Rookie responded pointedly. "I'm trained to pull over speeding cars, arrest drunken assholes, and _protect_ the _sanctity_ of _human life_. Not _end it_. You want someone murdered in cold blood because you don't like them? You stain your own hands first. I won't do it for you." His piece said, Ryan picked up the furs he'd been hoping to sell, turned his back on the sputtering hunter, and wandered back into the trees.

He was spending more and more time alone in the woods, wandering from clearing to field to grove, finding something soothing in the quiet of nature that the constant screams of people and gunfire tore from him when he wandered too close to people. He missed the peace of Before.

He was getting so tired of War...

_Another Slave of Time_

_Just like the Rest_

_Trying to Claim what's Mine_

_I'm doing my Best_

He stops going into areas were Resistance members live. Stops going near choke points where Project members haunt. Stops going into the open, or looking for hunters to sell his furs with. Winter is coming, and the War is still raging. Guilt ravages his heart most nights, when the screams and cries echo loudest, and grief haunts his days, when his wanderings find yet more bodies, from both sides of the War and from those unlucky few caught between.

He weeps more than he smiles, and his hands bleed and ache from the many graves he's slowly dug. His cheeks and belly are hollow from too many sleepless, restless nights and empty, starving days. And still, he wanders on, throughout the various Territories, hidden in the woods.

The days stretch on, growing shorter as the nights get colder and colder.

His shoulders ache from baring the weight of his decisions, but bare them he does.

He will not cross that Line.

_Time, it plays on and on_

_It will never Stop_

_Not for no-one._

_Take what you've got_

Sometimes, Ryan turns on his radio and flips through the frequencies, listening to both sides of the War. In the beginning of his self-exile, the demands and cries for his aide dug new holes into his heart, bore their claws into his brain until they whispered through his dreams, and then his waking hours. Quickly, however, those cries turned to demands, to threats, to weeping condemnations, accusations and damnations and revulsion. Those, too, sank their claws into his tired, aching mind.

The demands and threats and name of Sinner soon changed as well. They morphed into confusion, suspicion, then eventually into cajoling, coaxing, concern. There was more than one night, he would turn on the radio, to hear the soft, coaxing croons of a Seed, urging him to return Home, to come to Them, to Redeem himself before the Lord and let Them _Help_ him. Those were sometimes harder to bare than the condemnations of those he was _supposed_ to help.

Because he couldn't even _help himself_, couldn't help _anyone_ when they cried to him, and how could they say they would Help Him when there was nothing _to_ help? His Purpose was gone, his Soul and Heart and Mind were torn, but those blood-soaked Lines remained, etched into his Being and unable to be crossed.

How could anyone Help, when he'd already been whittled down to an empty Husk, held together only by his convictions and the steadily-blurring whisper of his Mama's voice keeping him from eating a bullet?

_Sort of like the Drops of Rain_

_We will all Rise_

_To be put down again_

_The Sky oh how it Cries..._

It was raining, the next time Ryan ran into one of the Seeds. He was haunting the woods along the Henbane, covered head to toe in furs and a wearing a stolen gasmask as he wandered through. One moment he was alone. The next, there she was, curled up into a ball and sobbing in the rain, white dress soaked through and fingers digging into her arms, hair clinging to her face as she wept. Staring blankly, tiredly, at the girl, Ryan felt that weight on his shoulders grow heavier still.

She was a Child in a War she should have no part of, only to find herself in charge of an entire Faction, with the Weight of Expectations on her thin, tiny shoulders.

It was a weight that had pushed Ryan into self-exile and hermit-hood at twenty-eight. Little Faith was, what twenty? Young and broken and jagged in places that she was trying to fix with soft dresses and flower crowns of Bliss.

Sighing through his nose, feeling as if he'd aged a century in a moment, Ryan shrugged off his thick, self-made fur coat, ignoring the way the rain immediately began to soak into his thin, ragged clothes. Instead, he slipped through the grass and settled his jacket onto those thin, bowed shoulders, ignoring the way the little girl jolted, cringing in fearful surprise and yelping like a kicked puppy. Instead, once he adjusted the jacket to pin in what little heat it could Ryan fell to the ground beside her and threw his arm around her shoulders, staring up at the sky tiredly, bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes morose as they stared up at clouds that were a few shades darker than his eyes.

He didn't say a word, when she hesitantly leaned against him. When she shivered and shook and bit back sobs. When she gave up and just hid her face in his ribs, weeping as if she was being torn apart.

Ryan remained silent throughout, eyes on the sky and arm cradling her close. Just two broken, damaged souls resting against one another.

When he finally left her, the rain had long stopped, and she'd long since fallen asleep against him. He carried her to the closest tree, settling her against the safety of its semi-dry roots, and walked away.

He left his coat with her.

_Back Home we get_

_The doors get Locked_

_Time for Bed_

_You've Talked the Talk_

For a time, the coaxing for him to 'Come Home' returns, more fervent, more earnest.

(More honest)

Ryan listens to the voices, the only real voices he hears anymore, besides the condemning ones in his head. He listens and he listens and he wanders away from them, deeper into the woods, into wilds. They're like sirens, he knows, and he left his beeswax behind long ago, but still, he wanders away.

It's all he ever does now. All he knows to do now.

The loneliness is yet another hole carved into his Being as his feet tread ever onward and away.

_Then come the Dreams_

_Soon after you Awake_

_As fast as it Seems_

_Where is the Break?_

The mountains are crueler than the forests, the animals wilier, more vicious. He loses a finger to a wolverine, and the finger beside it to his own blade when infection begins to bloom dangerously. He's more careful after that, clumsy as he tries to re-learn to hunt, surviving on what he can trap or poach in the meantime.

Eventually, he digs himself in, claims a tiny cave for his own as the first snows come in like an omen of death, the Pale Horseman caressing the land with soft, frigid touches that promised eternal sleep and warmth if they only laid down for a moment, shut their eyes for just a second.

Soft promises whispered on the wind.

He nearly starves to death, nearly freezes as well on more than one occasion, but, somehow, he lives.

Spring comes.

The world around him changes.

And yet, it's all the same.

_The Seasons, they Change_

_Make no Mistake_

_Things can seem strange_

_Or is it just Fate?_

He's sifting through an abandoned cabin, when the plane goes down. He freezes in the window, hollow eyes observing, as a desperate form throws itself to safety, parachute all but useless as anything but a prayer as they spiral through the air. The land all but in his lap, colliding painfully with the ground behind the cabin in an awkward roll as the plane crashes in the nearby distance with a tearing scream of tortured metal, before the consuming roar of an explosion briefly turns the piece of sky above it orange and black.

Ryan stared and stared and stared, eyes briefly following the trail of sickly black smoke as it lashed and coiled through the sky, a demonic, sulpheric serpent of old. Then, his eyes slowly fell, to the limp, gasping form on the ground, half-buried beneath their parachute and occasionally shifting, their pain-filled groans muffled through the somehow intact windows of the cabin. He stared at them for a time, before letting out a slow, tired sigh.

Moments later, as he bent down and carefully pulled the parachute from where it covered their form, he wouldn't be able to find it in himself to be surprised at the blood, unconscious form of John Seed lay sprawled out before him, a bullet wound oozing in his shoulder and a broken right leg keeping him out.

In the distance, Ryan could make out the faintest hints of a Resistance Patrol, no doubt coming to make sure the deed was well and truly done.

Staring down upon the unconscious, helpless form, Ryan's Mama's voice whispered through his mind, and he sighed again.

Another weight added to his heavy shoulders, and with it the unconscious Seed.

His burden settled against his back, Ryan wandered into the woods again, and vanished, long before the Resistance finally reached the little cabin in the woods.

_Life these Days,_

_It's becoming the same_

_Losing its ways..._

_Feels rather plain._

It takes Ryan six hours of slow, quiet wandering, John's unconscious form plastered against his aching back and shoulders, until he reaches the tiny place he occasionally calls home. It's a grove, of sorts, the tall branches of the trees twisted and gnarled and bent under the weight of time and nature, forming a natural dome that Ryan had taken the time to half-hazardly cover in pelts and furs. He keeps a few random things here, when he's in the Valley. Med-kits and canned goods and extra crossbow bolts. Sometimes, when he returns to it, it's been ransacked. Sometimes, things have been taken but replaced with other items of various uses.

Once, there had still been someone there, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, dead to the world on the carefully folded mess of sewn-together wolverine pelts. He'd left them there, and found a tree to sleep in that night.

Now, Ryan is careful as he settles John Seed down on that very same 'bed', stopping to just stare at his bloody, lax face for a few, long moments. This is the closest he'd gotten to another _living_ human being in months. Before that, it was Faith. Before her, it had been a few, brief, confrontations as he learned how to hide, how to dodge, how to avoid those who Hunted both him and Others.

It felt... Important, somehow. That it was John. Little John, who lived and breathed and raged against the very Sins he scolded others for having, who sought his brother's approval with all the desperation of a drowning man seeking a lifeline. A single word or hint or gesture of disapproval from Joseph, and those towering walls of ego and self-importance and strength _crumbled to dust_.

Ryan sighed, fatigued, as his Mama's whispers urged him onward.

By the time John woke, late in the night, he had been cleaned and bandaged, medicine that was hoarded and scavenged and needed used heavily on each open tear in his skin, his broken leg pain-stakingly set and wrapped between a splint made of flat, strong pieces of metal, and Ryan crouched nearby, relentlessly managing a small, hot fire as he carefully cooked the remains of a few too-curious birds and squirrels.

"What...?" John slurred, blue eyes quickly sharpening from groggy, painful sleep to pain-sharp focus, sweat beading his forehead as those blue-gray eyes darted around them fretfully. "Who are you? Where are we? And _what_ is that _god-awful_ smell?!" He hissed, forcing himself upright only to snarl and clutch his broken leg. Ryan sighed quietly, checking the meat silently before nodding to himself and rising. John stiffened, face contorting into a sneering visage that did nothing about the sudden apprehension in his eyes, the frightened tensing of pained muscles as Ryan crouched suddenly at his side.

Silently, Ryan set the smooth, carved 'plate' of cooked meat and wild mushrooms next to the Baptist, as well as one of the few, precious bottles of water he had. His deed done, Ryan lifted his head and met those eyes head on for several seconds, before dropping them again and moving away, towards his own little nest of deer and rabbit furs. He sat, his back resting against the closes tree trunk, his own plate and a crude bowl of boil-cleaned creek water at his side. Silently, he began to eat the unseasoned, slightly rubbery meat.

John, after several frustrated attempts to get him to talk, ranging from saccharine sweet to snarled desperation to venomous hisses, eventually began to eat as well, grimacing as he chewed on the meat, obviously disgusted. Ryan ignored him, for the most part.

Squirrel just wasn't for everyone, after all.

_Day in, Day out_

_It can get quite a mess_

_I will not Shout_

_Over an old game of chess_

"Your Sin is _Pride_," John hissed at Ryan on the fourth day, after the first three were spent mixed between snarled threats and sweet plots and cold statements, all of which went unanswered as Ryan diligently tended to the youngest (blood) Seed's injuries. "It's clear to me now, here in this _hovel_ you've dug for yourself like some mockery of humbleness. You think you're better than those of us out there trying to _Save_ people, you think you are _above us_! And here you are, with me practically at your mercy, and yet you have done _nothing_ to see me either returned to my Family or turned over to the _Resistance_," he spat the title with derision, a sneer of disdain curling lush lips. Ryan continued to clean his crossbow in the silence that had long ago seized his body. He had not spoken in... Months. Not since the last disagreement with one of the Resistance members.

He wasn't sure if he _could_ speak, anymore.

"You think yourself above the Collapse, above us all! That you have no need to dirty yourself with those _below_ you," John continued; Ryan mused that, eve if he couldn't speak, the Baptist had enough words for ten men. And not nearly enough of them made sense. But still, Ryan listened, quiet and calm and unblinking as the injured man ranted and accused and spat, aggressively, ridiculously impotent in his current stage, his fury (his _wrath_) growing with no place to go, until it exploded from his mouth like the steam from an over-heated teapot, all whistling screeches of hellfire and damnation and too much symbology to make sense to anyone.

On the seventh day, Ryan was told his main Sin was now Sloth.

On the tenth, it was Greed.

On the twelve, Lust was offered, in a wildly desperate sort of hesitance, blue eyes glittering with mania as Ryan gently but steadily cleaned the Baptists body and tended his wounds.

By the fourteenth, no Sin was offered, only sullen, despondent silence. Ryan sat quietly on 'his' side of the hut, observing the bleak, longing blue stare John gave the distant sky, where search planes bedecked in Project art continued to scour daily. The howling songs of the eldest Seed's wolves had grown clearer of late as well. And Ryan knew, it was time for the other to be returned to his Family. His leg was really the only thing that remained unhealed, his other wounds either scarred over or on their way there. Nodding to himself, Ryan moved around the hut, gathering his supplies, knowing he would not be able to return to this safe place for some time, after this.

John watched him with tired, confused wariness, a flash of terror turning those blue-grays to the color of the predawn sky.

"Where are you going?!" He demanded as Ryan secured his backpack into place. Ryan turned to him silently, blinking as he realized that the Baptist had attempted to surge upright, managing to pull himself part-way off the ground before the pain in his leg forced him back to the earth, tears of either pain or fear glinting in his eyes. "You can't leave me here! Don't leave me here!" He gasped out; Ryan blinked slowly, before shaking his head and stepping forward, kneeling down beside the Baptist as he had every day for the past two weeks. Gently, he made a 'settle down' motion with his hands, until the nearly hyperventilating breath gasping from the other man's mouth finally, reluctantly, calmed.

Once the other had settled, Ryan dug his radio from his pocket, feeling a brief, bright flare of sorrow as he stared down at it. It was... _Had been_, his Police Issued Radio, a brute of a thing that had survived countless falls, skirmishes, animal attacks, and weathers. His only line to the outside world, as it were, if one considered 'outside world' to be anything outside of one's sphere of personal space.

(He missed people _so much_ but they always hurt him _so badly_ that he was being constantly torn in two, torn to shreds by himself and the world and he was just _so tired_)

Fingers clinging to the radio, staring at it in his hands as he sat there, crouched before the other man in silence for a moment, Ryan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and once again sacrificed something of himself to another person, and handed John his radio. As the youngest Seed gaped at him, wide-eyed, Ryan quickly and neatly used a dying sharpie on a scrap of map to carefully and clearly write out the location of the hut, handing it to the man as well, before rising slowly and walking away, fingers curled against his thighs as they longed to run back and clutch that small piece of plastic and circuitry to his chest. But he forced himself to move onward, out of sight, to guard the downed man from a distance as he heard John hesitantly call out over the radio, immediately answered by his Family.

It seemed that the Seed's were destined to receive something from him, no matter how much he desperately clung to it all.

Joseph Seed had taken his Peace.

Faith Seed had received his Sympathy.

John Seed now had his Comfort.

As he hid within the forest, listening and watching the approaching Project planes, hearing the distant sounds of Johns joyful weeping, he wondered what Jacob Seed would get from him.

And then questioned what else he even had to give, as he walked away and once again disappeared.

_Day after Night_

_Night after Day_

_Time is so precious..._

_So much to Say..._

Jacob Seed catches him with a drugged arrow to the meat of his thigh, and the only reason Ryan doesn't flee to pass out in safety is that there is a Cultist in his bear trap who needs to be released. So, vision doubling and steps staggered, he's caught by the eldest Seed as he carefully fumbles the key for the locking mechanism out of his vest and clumsily unlocks the teeth on the trap, the ginger-haired Soldiers hands catching him by the shoulders before he can collapse, even as the Hunters with him gather their moaning, crying companion and the unlocked trap as well.

"Easy there, Pup," the Soldier growls to him, one large hand sweeping over his matted hair and Ryan slumps in his grip, easily lifted and manipulated by the larger, older man's hands even as he dropped into dead-weight. "Let's get you Home."

And, as he slips unconscious, unable to put up even a token protest under those steady, unyielding hands and the clutching deep-rooted claws of the Bliss, Ryan has a moment to wistfully think that having a Home once more sounds nice.

A lie. But still nice.

He wakes in a bed for the first time in... He can't remember. Wearing clean clothes that are only a little too big, and not made of furs or plants or pieces of fabric woven together with prayer and hoarded strings. He sits up, slowly, head aching and vision still fuzzy with speckles of light and flickering butterfly wings, and peered down at himself for the first time since he found Joseph Seed in that clearing.

...He was a stranger in his own body, he noted, taking in deeply tanned skin and heavy scars and callouses. In the woods, in the Wild, such things seemed like they belonged there, that they were expected. But here, dressed in soft creams and whites, lying on a bed in a blank, stone room, with bandages wrapped tenderly around wounds he didn't remember even having... It all reminded him of what had been Lost, and what had been Given.

Staring, Ryan set his hands, dark from Nature, calloused from Work, scarred from Survival, against the clean, white sheet that hugged the mattress he rested on, and spread his fingers wide. The mangled scarred stubs on his right hand, where his middle and ring fingers used to be, reminded him that Inattention could Kill. The missing tip of his left hands pinky reminded him to keep his wits about him. The jagged scar, thick and ragged, that started in the middle of his right hand and disappeared up his wrist and under the long sleeves of the Project sweater he was wearing, reminded him to Trust his Instincts.

Staring at these Stranger's hands, Ryan slowly curled them into fists, and made them his own.

Across the room, the door opened, and the entire Seed Family stepped slowly in.

Ryan lifted his eyes, taking in Jacob's sharp, blank stare, John's bright, focused mania, Faith's wide, wondering relief, and Josephs gentle, quiet serenity. And, staring at them, Ryan felt his mouth twitch, one corner lifting faintly into the first facsimile of a smile since that fateful day in that lonely little clearing.

The door shut behind them, and the soft click of it was as loud as a gunshot.

_So, as the Grains of Sand_

_Fall quietly among the Stars_

_Try to understand_

_I am not from Mars_

"Junior Deputy Ryan Pierce," Joseph Seed breathed, stepping over and unhesitatingly reaching forward to cradle Ryan's face in his hands. The Preacher leaned down, their breaths mingling, and pressed their foreheads together. "We feared you Lost to us, my Child," he murmured, voice gently and achingly coaxing, beguiling, like moonlight on the surface of a still lake, beckoning observers closer. "When you vanished into the woods, when the so-called Resistance condemned you for the action, I had hoped, I had _prayed_ that you would come Home, that you would seek us out for your Rightful welcome into Our Family. And, when you did not, when you all but vanished into the air, I will admit, I did despair. I had thought you might have been taken, been captured or chased away." He pulled away, continuing to cradle Ryan's face between his calloused hands, cornflower blue eyes almost uncomfortably bright without the yellow Ray-Bans to hide their intensity.

His hands were warm.

"But then, you re-appeared," Joseph murmured. "Out of the shadows like a Guardian Angel, to grant our Sister peace of mind when her heart faltered. You offered solace and protection and shielded her beneath your wings, and gave her comfort in her time of need." Behind him, Faith smiled, tremulous and grateful and hopeful all at once, crystalline tears falling as she looked at him like he was something precious, like he was something valued.

"And yet, you did not seek gratitude or reward for your actions," Joseph murmured. "Instead, you once more disappeared, vanishing into the forests until you were needed again. And, once more, you came to your Family's aide. You _saved_ our Brother," he breathed, voice rapturous, Joy and Relief and Love threaded clearly, echoed strongly, through his voice as he smiled, bright and warm and true. John straightened, eyes fever-bright with his mania, a wide, wild grin on his mouth as one of Jacob's hands unhesitatingly reached out to trace down his spine in a near possessive, deeply affectionate move.

"You pulled him from the wreckage and bore him to safety, where you nursed and cared for and tended to him without falter. You did not fall into the trap of Temptation. You did not cast your gaze away in consideration of Sin. You cared for him without thought of reward or punishment, and, once he was out of danger, you offered him the means to safely return to us, and Guarded him from the shadows until we arrived." One of Joseph's hands slid up into his strangely soft, shortened hair, making Ryan realize, surprised, that it had been cut, shorn off until only an inch or so of his strangely curled, chestnut-colored locks remained.

"You were Meant to be here, Ryan," Joseph told him firmly, clearly, and Ryan flinched, his body jerking, his eyes wide, at the use of his name, because all anyone would call him had been some variation of Deputy or Rookie since he'd set foot in Hope County. Not Ryan, never Ryan, he could _never just be Ryan, not to anyone but himself_.

"God _brought_ you here for a Reason, my Child," Joseph told him calmly, simply, voice strong and clear and unflinchingly factual that the parts of Ryan's mind that were still panicking over the use of his name fell instantly quiet, swept under the expanse of the Father's words, like wings sweeping over the grass. "That Reason is clearer now than ever before. I misread the signs, I will admit, and I am sorry. I took your arrival, your Breaking of the First Seal, and I named you _Hell_." Joseph leaned forward once more, eyes so intensely, unnaturally _bright_, and Ryan held his breath, his own eyes wide his sight swallowed by cornflower blue and a light that one John was Mania but in Joseph was _Belief_.

"I named you Hell, when in fact, you are _Salvation_," the Prophet breathed, and the world once more tilted around Ryan, and something in his chest once again re-arranged as the weight that had welded itself to his shoulders, to his Heart and Mind and Soul, abruptly Shifted as well.

Once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, it was the memory of his Mama's words, in a clearing with an unarmed Preacher, that Changed _Everything_.

Now, it was the words of the Father, in a clear room, with an unarmed Preacher, that Changed it all again.

Ryan could only let out his breath in a shuddering sob, head bowing in supplication, shaking hands rising in tremulous uncertainty, as he embraced the Change once again. The Father wrapped his arms around his shoulders, cradled him to his breast as he wept, as Faith and John and Jacob crowded close and laid their own hands against his trembling form in comfort.

"Welcome Home," they murmured, crooned, growled, and whispered, and Ryan melted in reply.

He was Home.

_I am but a Man,_

_I Live and I Breathe_

_I do what I Can_

_And then, I leave._

Ryan was overwhelmed, those first few weeks of his Return. He shied away from crowds, from groups of Faithful who can to greet him, to welcome him home, or even just to stare at him in rapturous wonder as the Father coaxed him out into the Compounds. He was ferried from Territory to Territory for a while, trying to find a place where he could fit, could recover and feel safe and of use. But Joseph's Compound was too crowded, and John's was too loud, and Faith's was to uncertain.

In the end, it was Jacob's Compound where he found his Purpose.

Jacob didn't starve him or force him through the same Trials he did the Converted. He was no soldier, after all, and he wasn't Weak, not according to the eldest Seed.

"Say what you want about Honor and Glory in the battlefield, Pup," Jacob rumbled one late night, early in Ryan's stay as the two of them sat, equally sleepless, on the roof of the Veteran's building, cradling cups of black coffee and sharing a plate of fried catfish cutlets. "It took a hell of a lot of Strength to look around and see that the way things were going weren't the way they should, and to step back and walk away without hesitation. And you, I paid attention to you when you did," he grunted, taking a swig of coffee as Ryan sucked grease from his own fingers absently. "I listened to the Weak, spineless sheep as they cried out for you, and then as they realized you wouldn't come, how they tried to turn into wolves, snapping their flat, useless teeth at you. And you, Pup? You never even looked back, not once, for any reason." The Soldier turned his calm, steady gaze onto Ryan, setting his mug down with a soft thump of finality.

"That level of commitment, of straight-backed, steel-spined determination? That's _Strong_," he stated calmly, firmly, reaching over and poking one large, calloused digit into the center of Ryan's chest. Beneath that finger, the younger man's heart was racing, his eyes wide and body still, captured in that predator-steady gaze, caught up in the confident, unyielding self-assurance of the older man's attention.

"That, right there? That's something that this Project can use. That _I_ can use," Jacob told him calmly, simply. "You ain't ever going to be one of my Soldier. Never be able to Cull the Herd, not like the rest of these dogs. But, if Joe's the shepherd of this Flock of sheep, and I'm the Alpha of this jagged, broken pack..." Slowly, Jacob smiled, an old wolf baring his fangs, and Ryan's breath caught in his throat as the finger against his heart turned into a possessive hand. That hand, boiling hot against the cool night air, slid slowly up his chest to rest possessively against the base of his throat, the strength to crush him or collar him completely within the control of the Soldier before him.

"Every Shepherd needs a good guard dog," Jacob rumbled. "And every dog needs a Purpose. Stay close, Pup," he ordered, fingers curling ever-so-slightly, nothing but steady, secure pressure against Ryan's heartbeat. "We'll give you your Purpose, and your Home. Stay close, because you're _Ours_ now." He leaned in, using his grip to pull Ryan forward, and the younger man was helpless as he Surrendered once more, to a different Seed, but just as helpless to resist.

"You're Ours, Pup," Jacob rumbled, and pressed their foreheads together, pale blue eyes glittering like starlight as his teeth glinted dagger-bright under the light of the moon. "And we never let go." And Ryan could only Fall, helpless to stop himself, and unwilling to even try.

(In the end, Jacob Seed took his Life. Just, not the way anyone would have expected.)

**A/N:** AKA the fic where Rook's Mama raised him a certain way that gets waaaaaaaaay out of hand and finds himself a travelling hermit who eventually gets swept under a vague degree of Stockholm Syndrome and ends up joining the Cult in the end.

Ta-Da!

The Poem is called I Am But A Man by Lee Stewart and I honestly thought it could have been better or at least used better words/structure but hey, what do I know?


End file.
